SoC-Based BLDC Motor Controller Moves up to 40 Motors
Microchip Technology’s PolarFire SoC Motor Control Kit is a complete development platform for evaluating and developing high-performance motor-control applications.
Based on the MPFS095T SoC, it supports sensor and sensorless field-oriented control (FOC) for BLDC motors, combining deterministic FPGA-based motor control with a Linux-capable RISC-V processor subsystem. The platform includes real-time current and voltage sensing, configurable control loops, motor and sensor interfaces as well as gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ready for time sensitive networking (TSN). The kit also comes with a browser-based monitoring and control GUI, as well as supporting software and reference designs.
The architecture can scale to control up to 40 motors from a single device, making it particularly suited to synchronized multi-axis systems, industrial drives and servo systems, factory automation, robotic joints and actuators, autonomous/mobile robots and aerospace motion-control systems.
About the Author
Lee GoldbergLee Goldberg
Contributing Editor
Lee is the author of the popular PowerBites series.
Lee Goldberg is a self-identified “Recovering Engineer,” Maker/Hacker, Green-Tech Maven, Aviator, Gadfly, and Geek Dad. He spent the first 18 years of his career helping design microprocessors, embedded systems, renewable energy applications, and the occasional interplanetary spacecraft. After trading his ‘scope and soldering iron for a keyboard and a second career as a tech journalist, he’s spent the next two decades at several print and online engineering publications.
Lee’s current focus is power electronics, especially the technologies involved with energy efficiency, energy management, and renewable energy. This dovetails with his coverage of sustainable technologies and various environmental and social issues within the engineering community that he began in 1996. Lee also covers 3D printers, open-source hardware, and other Maker/Hacker technologies.
Lee holds a BSEE in Electrical Engineering from Thomas Edison College, and participated in a colloquium on technology, society, and the environment at Goddard College’s Institute for Social Ecology. His book, “Green Electronics/Green Bottom Line - A Commonsense Guide To Environmentally Responsible Engineering and Management,” was published by Newnes Press.
Lee, his wife Catherine, and his daughter Anwyn currently reside in the outskirts of Princeton N.J., where they masquerade as a typical suburban family.